Francis character design!

13th April 2012

Here's the character development and design of my lead character - Francis Dias - a lost lonely introverted man with queer obsessions. I haven't spent as much time on any character as I've spent on him. This was the first turn around, again - with the dot eyes that I used in the storyboards. The reason I used these is because the tone of the film was not supposed to be funny, and big eyes tend to make us laugh. Now here's a trade-off - dot eyes that are very difficult to animate, and show emotions, or round eyes that help express better, but change the tone of the film. I decided wonderful animators like the Raunch Brothers who animate for Storycorps manage to make people cry with their wonderful round eyed characters, so why can't I? (Do check out all the wonderful films storycorps have animated till now. So simple, but so emotionally satisfying.) Anyway, here goes Francis.